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A Little Blue Heron encounter at Ft.Fisher NC

By Sally Siko

While birding yesterday at Ft.Fisher NC I spotted a Little Blue Heron hunting for a meal in a small pond alongside a Great Egret, a Tricolored Heron and a Snowy Egret.
It was neat to watch the four birds making their way around each other in order to catch a meal.



Interestingly this species is closely related to the Snowy Egret (same genus), a white bird of similar size.
Their similarities are especially noticeable as first-fall and first-winter immature Little Blues are completely white in plumage and are easily confused with Snowy Egrets.
The easiest way to tell the two species apart from a distance is to observe their feeding habits.
Unlike the Snowy’s who are constantly on the move, the Little blue Heron is slow and methodical in its feeding approach, walking very slowly in shallow waters or standing still waiting for prey to approach.



These beautiful birds are known to breed here in NC. Their nests are flimsy, hardly more than a few layers of loose twigs and sticks haphazardly stacked to provide a platform for the eggs to be laid.
Their typical clutch is 3-4 eggs, with an incubation period of three weeks and a nesting period of six weeks.
 While in the nest, both parents feed the young by regurgitating a softened stew of prey. Within four weeks after hatching, the chicks are capable of short flights but don’t become independent until around six to seven weeks.

Little Blue Herons are a year round residents in the coastal regions of the Carolinas. Although they are typically live near saltwater areas they prefer freshwater habitats, in fact they’re also occasionally spotted inland all the way to the Triangle (central NC) from June to August.
They are usually seen hunting for fish, invertebrates, frogs, small reptiles and insects in shallow freshwater marshes, ponds and on mudflats.
What a beauty!

Photos by Sally Siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Biridng Trips and Tours in SC

Spending time at a Little blue-heron rookery on Pinckney Island SC

By Sally Siko

It was so cool to see these Little blue Herons nesting at the rookery on Pinckney Island SC last week.
There was a ton of bird activity here but the Little blues really caught my eye.
Their subtle hue of azure and mauve plumage color is absolutely gorgeous!



Interestingly this species is closely related to the Snowy Egret (same genus), a white bird of similar size.
Their similarities are especially noticeable as first-fall and first-winter immature Little Blues are completely white in plumage and are easily confused with Snowy Egrets.
The easiest way to tell the two species apart from a distance is to observe their feeding habits.
Unlike the Snowy’s who are constantly on the move, the Little blue Heron is slow and methodical in its feeding approach, walking very slowly in shallow waters or standing still waiting for prey to approach.



Here at the rookery, clusters of Little blues nested together in small groups.
Their nests are flimsy, hardly more than a few layers of loose twigs and sticks haphazardly stacked to provide a platform for the eggs to be laid.
Their typical clutch is 3-4 eggs, with an incubation period of three weeks and a nesting period of six weeks.
While in the nest, both parents feed the young by regurgitating a softened stew of prey. Within four weeks after hatching, the chicks are capable of short flights but don’t become independent until around six to seven weeks.

Little Blue Herons are a year round residents in the coastal regions of the Carolinas. Although they are typically live near saltwater areas they prefer freshwater habitats, in fact they’re also occasionally spotted inland all the way to the Triangle (central NC) from June to August.They are usually seen hunting for fish, invertebrates, frogs, small reptiles and insects in shallow freshwater marshes, ponds and on mudflats.What a beauty!

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Little Blue Herons at Huntington Beach State Park

Check out these beautiful Little Blue Herons!
I spotted them last week while birding at the Huntington Beach State Park.
It was particularly nice to catch a good look at the adult bird because usually all I see out there are immature Little Blues.
Not that there’s anything wrong with enjoying time with the little ones lol, it’s just I’ve been wanting to get a photo of an adult all year and hadn’t had much of an opportunity to do so until then.



As seen in this photo below, the young birds are dressed in entirely white plumage (with a tiny tinge of grey showing on the tips of their primary’s) during their first year.


Immature Little Blue Herons are easily confused with other white colored wading shorebirds such as the Snowy Egret.
The best way to tell them apart is to check leg color (black/ Snowy Egret vs. greenish yellow Little Blue Heron).

If your unable to discern the color of the birds legs then body language & posture is a reliable way to tell the two species apart.
Snowy Egrets tend to be very active while foraging. They appear to walk erratically, raising their heads to stand fully upright often to scan the water surface, they are always on the move.
Little Blue Herons are methodical hunters. They walk deliberately with their heads pointed down towards the mud or water while moving at a slow pace, rarely standing upright for more than a second or two.


These elegant birds are permanent residents of North Carolina’s coastal counties. Although a small number of them spend the winter here, as a migratory species they occur more numerously in the spring and summer months.
Look for Little Blue Herons hunting at the edges of freshwater ponds, brackish marshes and on mudflats from March to October.

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the mighty mirrorless monster of a camera, the @canonusa
#R5

Birdwatching News, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A Little Blue Heron encounter in Raleigh, NC

Earlier this month, a pair of Roseate Spoonbills caused quite a stir in the Triangle birding community by showing up at Lake Lynn in Raleigh. While these two were definitely a cool sight, they weren’t the only interesting bird to show up at Lake Lynn that day, check out this immature Little Blue Heron!



The young Heron was hanging out with the Spoonbills as they hunted for a meal together on the mud flats in the north end of Lake Lynn.
The larger birds seemed to tolerate the young one as the Little Blue followed the pair of Spoonbills like a puppy, following their every step through the shallow water.
Then, for whatever reason the Spoonbills decided to chase the Little Blue away.



The Heron tried to hide on a fallen willow branch but the Spoonbills pursued him relentlessly causing the Little Blue Heron to eventually make his escape by flying up into the higher boughs of a cypress tree.
Not long afterwards, Great Blue Heron flew in and watched the Little Blue intently.
Perhaps the larger Heron was eying the little one as potential meal lol!
After an hour or so of sitting in the tree top, the Little Blue Heron ended the interspecies standoff by launching himself from the tree into the air flying south across the water, disappearing around the bend of the shoreline.
Not long afterwards, the Spoobills headed out in the same direction…

Although they aren’t a particularly common sight at any location in North Carolina, coastal populations of Little Blue Herons are a year round resident of the Tarheel state and they’re also found here in the Triangle from June to August.
They are usually spotted hunting for fish, invertebrates, frogs, small reptiles and insects in shallow freshwater marshes, ponds and on mudflats.
Though it might seem that this elegant white bird is miss named, Little Blue Herons are indeed covered all over with a steel-purplish-blue colored plumage once they reach adulthood.
What a beauty!

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the full frame beast of an SLR, the mighty @canonusa
#5Ds

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Juvenile shore bird ID in the OBX

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Just a couple of teenagers hanging out around the pond. Here is a White Ibis on the left and a Little Blue Heron on the right. I photographed them last week at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. They hunted together for about 10 minutes, never more than a few feet apart from one another. You may be asking why this particular bird is called a “little blue heron” when he’s clearly not blue. The color doesn’t fit does it? Well the reason is that this is actually a juvenile Little Blue Heron. The young ones are dressed entirely in white plumage during their first year, often showing splotches of gray-blue by their first spring The White Ibis? He’s brown. That makes no sense lol! Thats because this is a juvenile White Ibis. He’s covered in a mottled brown and tan feather pattern. From a distance it’s easy to mistake a juvenile White Ibis like this little one for a Glossy Ibis. The main thing to look for is that a Glossy Ibis lacks the white patch on the back (best seen during flight) and belly is entirely dark colored, not white or patchy tan. Swipe through the last two photos to see the adult White Ibis and an adult Glossy Ibis for comparison 🙂 Adult White Ibis’s are white birds with pink bills and legs. They’ve got Carolina Blue eyes and black tips on their wing feathers. While viewing from far away or in poor lighting conditions, the adult Glossy Ibis appears to be dressed in all black but if your able to get a closer look at one, you’ll see that they are actually a beautiful reddish-brown color with shiny iridescent bottle-green wings. Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the fabulous full frame SLR, the @canonusa #5Ds

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